Tide Pods are
the Internet's breakout meme of early 2018. For those of you not in the know, the joke is that brightly
colored laundry detergent pods look like delicious fruity candy so maybe we
should, you know, eat them.

To be clear, you should not eat them.

Social media users on platforms such as Twitter and Reddit have been
posting memes such as the following:

Tide's parent company, Procter & Gamble (PG),
told CNN in a statement that "nothing is more important to us than the safety of
people who use our products."

"We are deeply concerned about conversations related to intentional and
improper use of liquid laundry pacs and have been working with leading
social media networks to remove harmful content that is not consistent with
their policies," said a company representative.

Laundry detergent pods contain numerous chemicals that are potentially
harmful if they are swallowed or otherwise ingested. Chief among these
concerns is a chemical known as 1,4 Dioxane. According to the Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, exposure to this compound can cause
eye and nose irritation,
kidney problems and possible long-term lung damage. These effects are unlikely to
occur if the product is used appropriately.

A Tide spokesman issued a statement to ABC News, which read, in part:

"Laundry pacs are made to clean clothes," the statement said. "They should
not be played with, whatever the circumstance, even if meant as a joke."

Tide also partnered with New England Patriots’ tight end Rob Gronkowski to
make a video discouraging people from entering the challenge:

Though many news outlets are reporting on the dangerous—and potentially
lethal—consequences of the challenge, cases of ingestion are not as high as
some might think.

The Washington Post
reported:

In 2017, there were 12,299 calls to U.S. poison control centers due to
exposure to laundry pods, according to AAPCC's latest data. That number is
actually down by about 14 percent since 2015, when there were over 14,000
calls. The organization didn't start tracking pod poisoning separately
until 2012, when Tide Pods
first came out.

A couple things to keep in mind. First, while 12,000 poison control calls
sounds like a lot, it's well within the range of calls for a lot of other
common household products.
In 2016, for instance, there were over 20,000 calls related to hand sanitizers, 17,000 for
toothpaste exposure, 16,000 for deodorants and 13,000 for mouthwash.

However, reported numbers for 2018 already show a rise in
Tide-pod-poisoning cases.

Last year, U.S. poison control centers received reports of more than 10,500
children younger than 5 who were exposed to the capsules. The same year,
nearly 220 teens were reportedly exposed, and about 25 percent of those
cases were intentional, according to data from the American Association of
Poison Control Centers.

So far in 2018, there have been 37 reported cases among teenagers - half of
them intentional, according to the data.

The challenge’s virality has also caused health care organizations to issue
warnings and public service announcements on Twitter:

Check out our press release regarding #laundry packets here: https://t.co/cR12CNOTne
Memes have referred to it as "forbidden fruit". Remember Adam and Eve suffered serious consequences. You can too.
Call 1-800-222-1222 or text POISON to 797979 to save the number in your phone.

A few organizations, such as Hurtz Donut, have even used the challenge to
grab online favor:

The challenge might soon lose its steam, however, as social platforms such
as Facebook and YouTube have faced increased pressure from Proctor &
Gamble to remove videos of people ingesting the laundry pods.

So now YouTube appears to be trying to get ahead of any wider societal
outcry over (yet more) algorithmically accelerated idiocy on its platform —
i.e. when sane people realize kids have been filming themselves eating
detergent just to try to go viral on YouTube — and is removing Tide Pod
Challenge videos.

At least when they have been reported.

A YouTube spokesperson sent us the following statement on this: “YouTube’s
Community Guidelines prohibit content that’s intended to encourage dangerous activities that
have an inherent risk of physical harm. We work to quickly remove flagged
videos that violate our policies.”

Videos that talk about the challenge are still allowed on social media
sites, though, so communicators—especially health care PR pros—should still
watch out for potential crises and opportunities to educate their
audiences.

How would you push back against an internet meme gone toxic, Ragan/PR Daily readers?